Columbia Country Club - Chevy Chase, MDHerbert Barker/Donald Ross 1911, Walter Travis/William Connellan/Walter Harban 1915, William Travis/William Flynn 1921, William Flynn 1923, George & Tom Fazio 1975, Tom Clark 1999, Bob Walton 2007, Joel Weiman 2018
Doak Scale Score - 5
It's difficult to imagine today that the par three 16th originally featured a green much like the 12th at Garden City, only with a diagonal water carry, sort of approximating 12 at ANGC.Somewhat shoehorned into a sprawling DC suburb, and separated by a rail line, it's tough to argue that the original architects didn't make the most of the property. With an elegant routing that proceeds clockwise along the boundary of the property on the front nine, and a back nine that switches back and forth across a long ravine before finally somehow squeezing in the last four holes into a tiny triangle of land, it's a great use of land economy.
There are any number of very good golf holes, as well. Both the 7th and 9th are stern par fours with surprising complexity, followed by two more solid fours at 10 & 11. All par threes are well conceived, as well.
However, the two par fives are inscrutable. The 5th hole, where evidently Bobby Jones made a big number when the hole featured a difficult cross bunker has been turned into a semi-featureless par five with trees down the right and OB tight left. The 12th is just odd to play with very few valid choices.
The most controversial hole is the 17th, a very short par four with a green up on a plateau, begging for the long-ball player to have a go at it. For most of us, it's an iron over a pond into a low-lying valley, and then a steep pitch uphill to the green. From my perspective, it doesn't matter much if it works or not as there is no room to do much else but I have to admit a fondness for its quirkiness.
However, my biggest knock on Columbia is that I'm betting it was pretty special in its time and a host of architects and internal changes over the years have taken out most of that uniqueness through green flattening, bunker removal and reshaping into visually unappealing ovals, and overdone pine tree planting. As such, for as intimate as the routing can be the golf course at times feels wildly disconnected as if designed by committee, and the presentation of some very good golf holes is not nearly what it could or should be.